About 38.5 million bank accounts have been linked to the Bank Verification Number, the Nigerian Interbank Settlement Scheme has said.
According to the latest figure obtained from the NISS, the banks witnessed 1.7 million new BVN registrations in the past five months.
This represents 31 per cent of the total number of bank accounts, and 53 per cent of the total number of active bank accounts, the Nigerian Interbank Settlement Scheme records have shown.
The data showed that the total number of bank accounts as of June this year was 122.37 million while the number of active bank accounts was 72.97 million.
The BVN is a unique identification number for customers of banks in Nigeria. It is linked to the biometric details of customers including the fingerprint of all ten fingers and facial image.
The Central Bank of Nigeria through the Banker’ Committee and in collaboration with all banks in Nigeria inaugurated a centralised biometric identification system for the banking industry in 2014.
The biometric identification was introduced to address identity theft, reduce exposure to fraud and enhance the banking industry chances of being able to fish out blacklisted customers among others.
Source: Punch Newspaper.
